TEMECULA: Online charter school nears opening

Mercury Academy will serve students in kindergarten to 10th grade

Parents who want their children to attend a charter school now
have another option in Southwest County.

Mercury Online Academy will start its school year Sept 8.
Students will study at home four days a week and visit a learning
center on another day.

Those centers could be located at Boys & Girls Clubs
facilities.

Mercury Academy will serve students from kindergarten to 10th
grade, with hopes to add juniors and seniors the next two years,
according to Bobbi Nelson, the school's principal.

The school's charter, issued through the Nuview Union School
District in Nuevo, allows it to serve students in Riverside and
surrounding counties, Nelson said.

A different home study-based charter school, Keegan Academy, is
awaiting word from the Temecula school board on its application. A
decision is expected Sept. 15.

The Temecula school district also offers a home-study program
through Rolling Hills Academy.

The Mercury Academy program is Internet-based. While working
from home, students will meet with teachers twice a day via a Web
cast, said Nelson, a former teacher and administrator in the Nuview
district.

They will learn through a humanities and social studies
curriculum known as Paragon. According to the school's Web site,
students learn about character, ethics, empathy and self-esteem by
studying the world's great heroes and by stepping into the shoes of
those figures, both real and imaginary. Paragon looks to the past
to prepare students to become the architects of tomorrow, the site
states.

Kevin Page, who is facilitating the school's opening, said
Mercury likely will open with 50 to 75 students. He did not say how
many students already have enrolled.

The school will be staffed with one teacher for each 25
students, Page said. Two teachers have been hired, he added, with
another expected next week. More teachers will be hired as the
student body increases, he said.

"Teachers will focus on matching that student's level to that
student's individual needs," Nelson said.

Nelson, the school's principal, said Mercury is different from
other online schools in the amount of time teachers spend with
students.

"There's a lot of individual attention," she said.

The school is operated by Mosaica Education, which serves more
than 15,000 students in 77 schools in the United States and
internationally. It is Mosaica's first school in California.

Charter schools are run by an independent board, but overseen by
their local public school district. They receive money from the
state based on their students' attendance.